I'm not Giving up on You
by GalwayGirl2
Summary: Canon-divergent, in DH- While Ron, Harry, and Hermione escape Malfoy Manor, they do not all appear to arrive at Shell Cottage unscathed. Immediately upon arrival, Hermione falls unconscious, with no viable clues as to the cause of her sudden coma-like state. Ron, however, is not giving up until she is back with the living. Back with him.


**A/N: Better late than never, WeasleytheKing! I admit, this one-shot has grown out of control, with the terrible influence of my beta Jessivyy. But for all you Romione lovers out there I expect, more the better! It will be in three parts but I do not have a posting schedule other than once a part is finished and signed off by beta, you will get it.**

* * *

**PART 1**

The voices were loud around Hermione and the words, insensible, as if they couldn't penetrate the bubble of pain Hermione felt submerged in. She struggled to open her eyes, to part her lips, struggled against a throat raw from screaming for mercy but she accomplished none of these things.

In her vague, half-conscious state, Hermione felt someone settle her body on a bed of the softest feather down, arranging her limbs near reverently. She could catch the tang of salt in the air as it wafted through on a draft but inhaling took too much effort, caused too much pressure in lungs that felt collapsed.

Despite this, someone still wrenched her mouth open and poured liquid down her throat. Even the smoothness inflamed her fragile insides, before leaving cool serenity in its wake.

As the voices around her lost their volume, and fervor, Hermione picked up on a single line being whispered in the chaos that she cleaved to as she sunk into the depths of unconsciousness.

"I'm not giving up on you."

oOo

Hermione opened her eyes.

The light was blinding, painfully so, and as her eyes adjusted to the starbursts of light she stretched the lethargy from her limbs. It felt like she was rising from a too-long slumber, like exhaustion settled too firmly into her bones.

Gingerly, Hermione pushed herself to a sitting position and noticed the texture of smooth, cool grass against her hands. She blinked and suddenly her vision cleared- unveiling the Blake Lake, on a pristine, cloudless day. The air rippled the glass-like surface of the Lake as it swept on a balmy breeze toward the shore. Hermione pulled it into her lungs greedily, still utterly enamored over the idyllic scene before her.

"Hey. You see a ghost or something?"

Hermione's head jerked right. Ron was seated next to her, his trouser-clad limbs stretched in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He nudged her with his shoulder while a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

Hermione was so befuddled that she couldn't manage a response. Ron's eyes clouded over a bit.

"Did you really see a ghost or something? You're acting strange."

Shaking her head slowly, she gathered an answer on her tongue. "No. Just… admiring the view." Hermione's eyes stayed on Ron's, who after a moment blushed up to his roots. He then handed her a book, eyes sliding down to the ground.

"You forgot this," he mumbled.

She paused before taking it from his hands. Every action felt accidental, untethered to context, as if they were arising from fantasy. Looking back at Ron, seated so close that she could connect his freckles to make constellations, she supposed that fantasy wouldn't be so terrible to indulge in for the time being.

"Thanks," she answered shyly. Then she opened the book and forgot all about rippling blue waters and endless blue eyes… um, skies. The words pulled her in as a sense of peace settled square between her shoulder blades. The feeling unfurled, flooding the lower half of her with leisurely looseness, at least until something heavy rested itself against her right thigh.

It was Ron. He had placed his head on her thigh, eyes turned determinedly up toward the sky as they squinted against the brightness. Overly casual, he threw his legs out and said, "I'm just going to take a nap. No point wasting this perfect afternoon, yeah?"

Exasperated, Hermione shook her head at Ron, whose eyes became lazy in the brilliant afternoon sunlight. She turned back to her book. His head was a comfortable weight, anchoring Hermione to the ground, steeping her in some tangible reality. After an only a few minutes- or maybe it was hours, it was hard to know- she picked up on his heavy and even breathing.

He'd actually fallen asleep.

Hermione didn't know whether to be charmed or annoyed.

Keeping her eyes on the page which by now she gathered she reread at least three times, Hermione lifted a hand and tentatively reached out. Her fingers landed on the strands, thick and full as they were where she could actually be caught and bound, but after a few gentle tugs Hermione ran her hand smoothly through the strands…

The ink blurred on the page and her fingers reveled in the softness…

An almost-echo of high pitched cackling skipped across the lake, shivering disquietly up Hermione's spine, but Ron's hair bound her in its waves…

oOo

Ron lay full across Hermione's supine form. His head rested on her chest with his right ear pressed against the relaxed beating of her heart. Partway through the night, he had pulled her arm up to rest her hand on his head, the pads of her fingers burrowed in his hair.

With his left ear, he heard the door to the bedroom open quietly. Just by the poised shuffle of feet, Ron discerned it to be Bill.

"We're doing everything we can," his brother murmured into the blackness. When Ron didn't respond he added, "Something's blocking her recovery process. Anything we tried to do won't penetrate past the skin."

Ron inhaled shakily, getting a lung-full of the briny breeze coming in off the shore. He wondered if the opened window mattered to Hermione's recovery.

He wondered if anything did.

"She seems so calm," he mused before muttering despairingly, "Even comatose."

Bill sighed. "That's because we've been blocked out of any indicators below the skin, including her consciousness."

The blanket of night was heavy as the hour trudged closer to midnight, the draft from the window soothing, and Ron felt like there wasn't much to say in these quiet hours. Come morning, it would be another story.

Bill shut the door on his way out and Ron returned to his watch as he vaguely moved her hand through the strands of his hair.

"I'm not giving up on you."

oOo

Hermione blinked. One minute she felt submerged in her surroundings, the Black Lake and the blue sky and Ron's hair soft against her fingertips, and the next minute she was sitting in the middle of a rambunctious Weasley dinner. The table was situated under a completely different sky, painted the dusky coral of summer twilight, and in the din of gingers conversing Hermione felt her equilibrium teeter dangerously.

The echoes of the earlier… vision? Fantasy? It resonated in her consciousness like the vibrations of a note plucked overlong and all of a sudden this new reality had layered on top of it, obscuring any possible clues as to what was going on.

A friendly elbow nudged her form and Hermione blinked away the confusion to see Ginny looking at her curiously.

"You okay?" She asked. Hermione's eyes darted back and forth between Ginny's as she tried to discern the level of realness to the situatThe coloring was correct- less like Ron's clear cerulean and deeper, resembling sapphires, like Percy's. Even the way they wavered with concern felt true enough.

Hermione breathed and forced a smile to her face. She figured she would just roll with it.

"I'm fine, Gin. Thanks." Soon thereafter, the two girls started to fill their plates. Molly managed another miracle, as the table was bursting with two roasts, tureens of potatoes and perfectly julienned vegetables, and piping hot rolls. The steam off of them perfumed the air with yeast and the alluring perception of sanctuary.

Hermione took in the chaos around her as she forked bites of the delicious meal into her mouth. Percy sat toward the end of the table on her left, seemingly in deep discussion with Mr. Weasley. Bill was also next to Percy but his attention flicked between the two serious demeanors on his left and the twins' juggling rolls on his right.

Bill's face was free of scars and openly joyous as Fred and George lobbed the bread back and forth, under arms, and in magically induced spirals through the air. Hermione continued to chew thoughtfully.

Ginny laughed at the theatrics and then turned to Hermione, nattering about something so inane that it didn't penetrate Hermione's theorizing. In fact, she was so deep into logicking her way through this… whatever-it-was… that she wasn't paying attention as she reached out for another of Molly's delicious rolls.

Until her fingers landed on something less soft.

Gaze tilting upward, Hermione froze at the sight of Ron across from her, his hand outstretched and meeting hers in the middle of the table. Their fingers kissed shyly before jerking away.

A blush stained Hermione's cheeks. Speechlessly, Hermione's stare never left the sight of Ron, as if he were an apparition newly formed across from her.

As if he was a magnificent sunset, encompassing her view.

Everything else darkened around his frame, fading to colorlessness against his vibrant hair, his telling eyes. A shy smile quirked his pale, pink-shell lips.

"You have it," he offered, nodding in the direction of the roll.

The blush deepened. Hermione averted her eyes briefly and said, "No, you."

For a few moments, not a single utterance came from Ron's direction, driving Hermione's gaze curiously back to him. The boy had the roll in hand, large capable fingers pulling it gently apart until he held two halves. He held one out to her.

With a swift inhale, Hermione reached out and took the half, her fingers grazing his in the exchange, and she felt Ron's pulse thrum into her like a well-remembered song. They smiled the tight press of lips attempting to hold back words and before she utterly embarrassed herself, Hermione allowed her eyes to drift up and away from Ron's own, only to find a terrifying silhouette directly behind him.

The meadow was dark now that twilight had fully faded. The grasses waved gently in the lazy summer breeze but against their swaying, Hermione caught the stark lines of a thin body and the dark, dangerous, familiar mass of corkscrew curls.

The easy, comfortable feeling of the Burrow dropped into the pit of her stomach and fear reared like a nightmare...

oOo

The sun dipped past the horizon cut by the ocean as Ron inhaled deeply the salt and crispness of a Spring evening. As usual, the windows were all thrown open to the comfortable seaside air which made Ron's research bloody difficult to keep tabs on.

The pages of his text ruffled forward and he lost his place. Again.

"Fucking Merlin," he cursed, flipping the pages for his last spot on magical comas. The medical jargon made his eyes heavy but he resisted the desire for sleep. Hermione wasn't going to get better if he slept and she needed to get better if he…

Because he…

Ron dropped his head into his arms, his mind heavy from the hypotheticals whirling around there, and he sighed at the pages and pages of possibilities regarding Hermione's unconsciousness pillowed underneath his head.

Harry's feet shuffled into the small sitting room; after years of living with the man, Ron knew instinctively the sound of his best mate's tread. His pace was heavy as if the entire weight of the world was chained around his ankles. The black-haired boy stopped at Ron's shoulder.

"You should sleep," Harry scolded lightly. Darkness was dripping down from the top of the window casement, leaching into the ruby-red glow of the setting sun. After 40 hours of being awake and a second wind of adrenaline, though, sleep seemed futile.

So did the research. Ron repressed a yawn with a groan in his throat then started to scan the pages again. Harry persisted with a gentle shove to Ron's shoulder.

"I can take over," Harry offered but Ron just bent his head further over the pages, stubbornness stiffening his spine. What he could gather from the same three lines he repeated for the past quarter hour was that Hermione was not currently suffering from an overdose of hellebore.

He flipped to the next page. Scanned the words, didn't understand half of it. Skipped over another page filled with images of plants that could cause sleepiness, unconsciousness, coma and death...where was Neville with his dry Herbology knowledge when you needed him?

Harry, stubborn himself, finally pulled a seat up across from Ron and placed both hands across the book. He said firmly, as if he were trying to convince himself as well, "We're not going to lose her."

"We won't last without her." Then, a bit more quietly, a bit brokenly Ron added, "I won't last without her."

oOo

...The murky silhouette took on strength in the darkness, solidifying into a terribly familiar figure, and Hermione couldn't help it. She screamed. She screamed and it pierced the night, cracking it clean in half until the vision of the Burrow fell away-

And Ginny's presence beside her disappeared-

And Ron's reassuring face blipped out of existence-

Terrified, Hermione closed her eyes against the shadow taking form and when her voice broke from the rawness of her abused throat, Hermione pulled in greedy breaths as if they were going to bring salvation.

In and out, in and out, and then her breathing slowed with every passing moment when nothing happened. She carefully peeled her eyes open.

The scene had changed yet again, the scary nebulous apparition gone with the shift. Hermione instantly recognized her location, much like she did with the others, and was now feeling a bit more guarded about landing herself in the Potions classroom. She stood by the row of glamoured windows with a small group of other Gryffindors, opposite to the Slytherins laughing meanly into the open space.

Hermione fidgeted as she stood next to Dean, an eerie sense of Deja vu descending upon her when Slughorn appeared. He started to talk about Advanced Potions, about the brews bubbling on the table in front of him, but Hermione hardly listened because she heard it all before.

Her eyes darted around the classroom, looking for sinister-shaped shadows...she focused her hearing to the ambient noise, trying to pick up on high-pitched cackling… and then all of the caution melted away as Harry and Ron stumbled into the room.

She was safe again. He was here now.

Just like the first time, like reality, Slughorn quit his posturing to welcome Ron and Harry. They scrambled for their textbooks and then came to stand next to Hermione. Ron, almost two heads taller than she, towered behind her but she could feel his heavy breathing from running the halls and wrestling with Harry.

It fanned across her neck, and she could just catch the faint scent of spearmint toothpaste, and she shivered.

"Who could identify these potions for me?" Slughorn asked and Hermione immediately jumped to the forefront before she turned and kissed the taste of spearmint clean from Ron's mouth.

Clearing her throat, she stopped in front of the first potion. "Draught of Living Death, sir," then moved on more confidently to the second, a secret smile curving her lips, "This is Polyjuice potion."

Hermione paused a touch longer in front of the third; its silver sheen emitted large bubbles that popped slowly into plumes of near-translucent smoke. She pulled it in and her eyes dilated.

In a dazy voice, she told the class, "This is Amortentia, the most powerful love potion in the world. It's rumored to smell differently to each person based on what attracts them." She paused, inhaling again. "For example, I smell freshly mown grass and parchment and -"

Through her periphery, her eyes flicked toward Ron.

"Spearmint toothpaste."

Hermione almost felt like sinking into the floor after the confession tumbled past her teeth. Slughorn congratulated her and then she shuffled back to the cluster of Gryffindors, trying very hard not to get trapped by the brilliantly white smile Ron was flashing her way.

Her parents would find no fault with his teeth.

Hermione ducked her head and blushed fiercely. After that, she knew Slughorn unleashed the tempting prize of Felix Felicis, jarring everyone in the classroom to rush for their cauldrons. Hermione set a more sedate pace, knowing how the memory played out.

It soothed her, knowing the outcome to this memory. She lit a fire under her cauldron and moved lazily through the recipe, turning her head this way and that to take in the other frazzled students. It wasn't a very attractive sight; she could see why Ron would make fun of her about it.

Thinking of him, her eyes instinctively sought him out. He was fumbling through some of the more difficult, timed directions of the recipe and she noted the sweat of frustration start to bead up along his hairline.

Impulsively, she moved toward him, throwing a stasis charm on her own cauldron as she rounded the table they were working on. He muttered the instructions under his breath as he was completely intent on the task in front of him.

The focus, so atypical, had sweat breaking across Hermione's own forehead- what would it feel like to have that kind of attention focused on her instead?

Exhaling shakily, she said, "Ron, would you like some help?"

His eyes darted up to her and a strained grin flicked across his face. He went back to stirring the cauldron, counting the stirs with the mute movement of his mouth, and Hermione was mesmerized with the way they caressed the numbers, causing her to fantasize about swallowing those little exhales until she was full of spearmint.

Hermione shook her head clear before she did something to embarrass herself and the sway of her stray curls brought Ron's gaze back to her, to stick this time.

She didn't know how, but blue eyes could burn.

"The surface should be still and dark, like obsidian," she quoted directly from the text. With enormous effort, she pulled her eyes away from Ron's to evaluate his potion and found it surprisingly close to the textbook's expectations. Hermione opened her mouth to praise him on his extraordinary work but the surface held her, the obsidian almost preternatural in the way it reflected like a dark mirror.

Except it didn't reflect any image at all- not Hermione's dipping curls or Ron's lanky frame but it did nevertheless display something.

Something dark, ambiguous. Malevolent.

A sense of foreboding tightened like a fist in Hermione's middle as the Potions classroom seem to fall away from her peripherals, leaving her alone with the scrying glass potion that whispered into the dark.

"_There's nowhere to hide_

_Nowhere to run" _it hissed.

She was stuck; Hermione was stuck by the voice and the swirling black vortex that revealed eyes and a sharp jaw and the menacing knife of a smile that was Bellatrix Lestrange. She knew that now; knew it and acknowledged that all of this was no dream, no fantasy.

This was her life caged in by that evil sorceress.

Hermione so badly wanted to scream at the vision and voice of Bellatrix and demand answers but far and away, past the twisted nightmare playing out in front of her, Hermione felt pulled by something else.

It was softer, invisible like the swirling undercurrents of the river, but oh so steady. She allowed her consciousness to be pulled to it and to what she certainly believed would be safety.

"Hermione? 'Mione?

It's okay… it's okay…

I'm not giving up…

oOo

"...on you." Ron mumbled the words over and over into the comforter pulled up to Hermione's chin. He was so close that his body was half draped over her prone one, the desperate exhalations fanning across her skin.

She didn't twitch. She didn't swat him away and scold him with a "Ronald". And even with any of those likely or reasonable reactions lacking, Ron knew deep in his gut that Hermione needed to hear his voice all the same.

So he rambled over and over until they sounded less like a promise and more like a prayer. Some appeal to Merlin or Godric or whoever the bloody muggles worship.

_I'm not giving up on you. Come back. You're safe._

It was the middle of the night. Ron had abandoned the research hours ago, finally growing so tired that he admitted to the need to lie down and catch some sleep. He fell face first into a mattress and out of the black oblivion, he felt almost startled awake.

There was no noise. There was nothing to suggest a disturbance. And yet something pulled him from the bed, down the hall to Hermione's recovery room, and to her side where she lay like a statue. He felt a bit mad as he spoke consoling, unbelievable statements to her limp frame and the madness was only further fueled by the days and nights that passed by with no change and no improvement.

Bill had said they hit a literal dead end; it's as if nothing existed past the barrier of Hermione's skin. And yet, the revelation didn't keep him from making daily trips to her room to have one way conversations. Or to spend hours watching lines of text blur on dusty, old books as he searched for an answer. The war against Voldemort was raging somewhere far and away and he knew it was something they would all have to get back to, especially Harry. Wizarding Britain depended upon it.

But Ron depended upon Hermione. And he wasn't going anywhere without her.

oOo

It may have been a minute or a month; Hermione couldn't come to care as she drifted in the serenity of soothing sentences that after a while, she could identify were coming from Ron. She didn't know where he was, if he were a figment of her mind or as real as her heartbeat, but the words cradled her high above the darkness, where Bellatrix seemed to lie in wait.

Hermione didn't know how or why the witch was steeped in her mind but she was and in a faint almost instinctual manner, Hermione could feel Bellatrix spread like Devil's Snare as if she were trying to choke her out.

Hermione wouldn't have it. She'd travel every trail of thought in her head before she allowed Bellatrix to stamp her out. At that, Ron's voice began to dwindle and Hermione considered where to go that may keep her hidden until she could come up with a better plan.

_When in doubt, go to the library. _She only hoped she could research in this internal hell hole of hers…

...The sensation was very much like falling asleep. One moment she had been clinging to the echoes of Ron's words at this hazy indecipherable height and the next, her feet were planted firmly on the very familiar floor of the Hogwarts library. The coolness of the stones radiated up even through her shoes, a rippling 'welcome home' from the place she loved most in the castle.

Tall rows of chained books soared above her head, indicating that she had been dropped in the Restricted Section. The lamps on the wall flared hot as purpley hues of evening painted the sky out the windows. Without further observation, Hermione started her trek into the deeper rows, her eyes scanning the brass plates that categorized the different books.

_Dark Curses...where are you? _The rows got subsequently darker, the light eaten up by the inky ether of the long boxed-in trails. Disquiet felt like fingertips on her neck and she wished she had a light to venture down a specific row. Immediately, inexplicably, her right hand felt weighted and when Hermione looked, she found her vinewood in her hand. She wordlessly wove it into 'Lumos Maxima' and felt the prickly fear dissipate.

Books with every title imaginable were written in gilt and gold across the spines; Hermione scanned and scanned, despite having no real direction about what type of dark curse she was looking for. Eventually, having moved so far down the row that the lamps were a pinprick, she spied a book titled Malicious Mentalism. She reached up on her tiptoes but it was too far past her fingertips. All of her attention had narrowed in on this book, this possibility for answers that she forgot entirely about her wand trapped under her hand on the ledge.

Pushing an extra half inch up, Hermione arched her back until her shoulders strained, and just as she was ready to give up a towering presence crowded her from behind.

She sucked in a breath. Pale hands, dotted here and there with freckles, curled around the spine of the book and pulled it down until the cover was right under her nose. Her eyes couldn't even register the bold block lettering as they rolled back in her head, the intense scent of spearmint wafted over her and the heat of the stranger's arm seared through her own clothing and onto her skin.

Except it wasn't a stranger.

Hermione turned swiftly and looked up into Ron's face. Despite being backlit, her stomach warmed at the intensity in his blue gaze. He all but forgot about the book he retrieved for her as they stood, suspended in alluring proximity.

She would only have to tip her chin up just so…

And Ron- sweet Ron, considerate Ron- would do the rest. He captured her mouth with his own, the movement unwavering as he molded his lips to hers half-opened on a gasp. The contact stunned her.

He was common room fires and the bite of morning air. He was safety, the feeling of familiarity when walking around your home. Ron's arms locked around her body until she was lifted onto the ledge, teetering there, and the kiss deepened when she tentatively slid her tongue across his bottom teeth.

The groan rumbled in his chest, reverberated in her own. She felt more alive than she ever had before. She felt more grounded in reality than her recent memory could conjure… and yet, this was no memory at all. It was pure fantasy as she ran her hands up the sides of his Oxford, muscles bulging under the fabric. It was delirious dreaming when Ron tapped the notches of her spine like piano keys, until he hit the right ones to make her sing.

So enamored by the sensation, Hermione didn't initially pick up on how the light eventually, totally snuffed out from behind her eyelids. The air in the towering row of books took on a cool, preternatural stillness; she couldn't even hear the shallow breathing of Ron anymore.

Hermione's hands cautiously rounded his shoulders and with utter dread, found the tickling silkiness of hair splayed there. Her eyes stayed resolutely closed.

She would not imagine black, corkscrew curls.

She would not fabricate the echo of cackling laughter as it bounced off the books.

Hermione's mouth had dropped away and dread settled in the space between. She tasted the sickening words as they fell from Bellatrix's mouth.

"Not seeing doesn't make me disappear, Mudblood."

A hand wrapped around Hermione's throat and her eyes shot open in shock.

Her torturer stared back at her, eyes wide and unfathomably dark. Bellatrix's sharp fingernails pressed into the thin skin of Hermione's neck and her breath hitched, air impeded in a throat squeezed tight.

"Do you really think you'll research your way out of this, Mudblood? Being called clever for so long has warped your perception." The words fanned over Hermione's face, their teasing nature just a prelude of what was to come. Bellatrix, always one to play with her food, backed away slightly and caressed the now bruised skin of Hermione's neck.

But Hermione refused to play back. Cold sweat was already starting to break out along her hairline as the torture at Malfoy Manor, which had landed her in this mental mire, started to flit across her eyelids.

Hermione had no time for games. Only escape.

She blocked out the vision of Bellatrix in front of her, white teeth bared in a predatory smile, and she repressed the blinks of the Manor where she was held helplessly to the ground, Crucio hot as lightning in her blood. Hermione ignored it all and instead followed a trail of warmth and light. Of laughter and camaraderie, until she was far away from the black hole that was Bellatrix…

...and instead square in the middle of the common room couch. It was the one that faced the fire, which was currently blazing with warmth. Otherwise, there seemed to be no life or activity in the surrounding area. Hermione sat very still for a moment, becoming one with the plush cushions of the couch as she honed in on this entirely new yet also unwanted sixth sense…

She seemed to be safe. She couldn't sense Bellatrix anywhere. As she let out a sigh, something solid suddenly appeared to the left of her on the couch.

"Eek!" She squealed and instinctually extended an arm to slap away whoever or whatever it was.

"Ow! Hermione!" Came a voice so familiar that she actually ached down to her bones. When her vision reoriented- for it seemed as if the vision...or perhaps memory... distorted for a second- Hermione caught the most wonderful view of Harry slouching grouchily into the cushion beside her. His hand was curled around his right eye as his black, untidy fringe fell across the fingers there, the only visible eye a glaring green orb.

"What was that for?" He groused. Hermione felt an addictive warmth spread through her, lifting the corners of her mouth.

"Sorry. Was just startled out of a daydream." She couldn't even keep the relief out of her voice. Harry, who seemed to be preoccupied himself, merely shrugged his forgiveness before turning his attention to the flames.

"I hate Umbridge." He muttered after a while.

Hermione, not having any context for the memory other than the safe and secure location of Gryffindor tower, the cherished and sorely missed presence of her best friend, asked rather dumbly, "Why?"

He stared at her, unblinking. "Well," he said a bit patronizingly, as if she couldn't quite keep up, "the most recent reason is for kicking me off Quidditch."

The memory came back to her now in her subconscious. Or would it be sub-subconscious? A tantalizing if not totally useless question at the moment so Hermione refocused on Harry, her brooding friend.

Harry, her anchor.

She tried soothingly, "I know," and because she couldn't help herself her hand lifted from its place in her lap to clasp his shoulder. He stiffened a moment at first, always the initial reaction for as far back as Hermione had touched him, before settling into the silent solace. They stayed that way as they watched the flames dance in the hearth. Both were perfectly content merely existing with the other, soaking up what each gave soundlessly.

For Harry who never had much compassion in his life, Hermione imagined him almost luxuriating in the unconditional expression of it.

For Hermione, she couldn't get enough of the authenticity that seemed to echo in the moment. It was like somewhere, outside of here- her own mind- she and Harry were doing the exact same thing.

oOo

The room was much too dark to see anything, really, but Harry carefully picked his way through the shadows to Hermione's side. It was the fourth night in a row that he had woken and found the other twin bed in his room empty.

The observation all at once cheered and saddened him. It was the kind of moment he would have loved to awaken to back at Hogwarts- the middle of the night rustle where his eyes would blearily open to find Ron's bed empty, which would lead Harry to trek down the stairs to the common room only to find his best mate secretly meeting with his other best mate.

Destiny fulfilled. The inevitable ending to what was a very long, very overdue flirtation period. If this were Hogwarts, Harry would be trudging off to bed a happy man, knowing that those two were finally together.

He gingerly moved a second seat up to the head of Hermione's sick bed.

Ron sat in the seat on the other side, slumped and sleeping on the mattress.

She remained unmoving in the face of Ron's formidable snores.

No, this certainly wasn't Hogwarts. Despite what Bill had told him about her current peaceful state, Harry hesitated in touching Hermione because the fact of the matter was, he knew touching her this way wouldn't be the same.

_Really _touching Hermione, even when he dreaded being touched after living through the cruelty of the Dursleys, always ended up settling his soul. She somehow acted as a dampener to the dread, a balm to his otherwise broody personality and he was afraid that touching her now would wash away that memory.

Instead, he whispered to her. "Hermione," her name soft, pleading as it escaped his lips.

She didn't answer. Something he also knew- _really _talking to Hermione meant an hour long monologue on the chosen topic of the day. Harry couldn't begin to fathom how to handle her silence.

If he thought about it too hard, he'd imagine it being like handling a corpse. A comparison that neither Ron nor himself took kindly to when they thought on it. Sparing a glance now at Ron, who seemed untroubled with having his body be in full contact with the brunette, Harry bucked up some of the famous Gryffindor courage and reached a hand out.

Very gently, he picked up Hermione's surprisingly warm hand and leaned forward until the weight of her fingers, and her stability, curved over his shoulder.

It was a moment steeped in nostalgia for Harry. He soaked up every quiet sensation of it, much like he used to in past times. Where Hermione tended to deal in words, Harry had always been at his best when brooding.

Or, more accurately, best when brooding if one of his friends was there to break him out of the mood at the right moment. The friends in question were both currently unconscious and so Harry had nothing but the darkest hours of the night ahead of him and bountiful reasons to be broody.

And so he was. Until the sky grew grey with the dawn. Until Ron stretched the achiness from awkwardly lying muscles. Until Bill found them there beside Hermione.

He looked between Ron and Harry, his face pale under the scars left by Greyback. By now, the sun had fully risen and its rays hit the lapping ocean water like knives, splintering it into a thousand diamonds. Harry's eyes focused on the vicious beauty of the shoreline as Bill edged his way into a reality check.

"There's nothing else I can do. We've tried everything in our arsenal and you've been searching for over a week with no answers." The thin, weary man stopped to take a breath which gave Ron a chance to rile himself into fight mode.

"A week is hardly any time-"

"It's an eternity in a war." Bill interrupted. The firmness of the oldest Weasley's tone had Harry focusing back inside the house and onto the issue at hand. He wanted to discredit Bill, to accuse him of rashness which wasn't altogether unreasonable- a week was a week no matter the political climate, but Harry couldn't deny that the war was indeed still on.

And it still needed the Chosen One. Just as much, if not more than Hermione needed him.

He forcibly turned away from her, as if the act of not seeing her could diminish her significance concerning his next words. Bill had been the messenger but it was Harry who would have to hammer it home.

To abandon both his friends.

"You're right Bill. There is a war on." The words came out on a weary exhale. Harry's eyes swung toward Ron who was suspended between aggression and shock. His ears were red; the typical sign of his fury, but his face was slack from Harry's verbal acquiescence. If it had been Harry, he imagined a fair bit of betrayal would be burning through his blood as well.

The only true consolation to him was knowing that it was meant to be Ron and Hermione in the end and if he could gift that to them, it would be worth every ounce of trouble.

As Ron opened his mouth, likely to dissent, Harry rushed forward with an explanation.

Gentle. Unyielding. Water on rocks worn smooth.

"Ron, we're at war. They could use you, they could certainly use Hermione, but they need me. It doesn't end without me." A fractured pause where Bill ducked out, and Ron turned hurt-filled eyes away from his best mate, and Harry continued down a path paved with good intentions.

"I'll go. I'll go and try to kill Bellatrix and maybe it will end the curse. I'll finish off the Horcruxes and defeat Voldemort and then come back to help end it. Because right now, there is no end we know of…"

Ron slashed his hand through the air. "Don't."

Despite the brightness of the unseasonable April day seeping its warmth into the small cottage, the air in Hermione's bedroom turned cold at the resentment, the regret. The untold apologies that Harry felt responsible to carry because there was no way Ron would accept them right now.

He stood up shakily from his chair and looked sadly upon Hermione in the bed, Ron bent over her protectively. Knowing there was nothing more he could say, Harry moved towards the door, pausing slightly with his hand on the knob. It would be a bloody shame to leave without closure but goodbye could mean forever... why risk it?

Ron, always the riskiest of the three, seemed willing to take the chance as he cleared his throat, delaying Harry's exit. He looked over his shoulder at his friend, who had turned a shamelessly tear-streaked face up to him.

"I'll stay. I'm not giving up."

Harry smiled sadly at Ron and simply bid, "Don't."


End file.
